Why are health professionals so unsupportive and think that babies are evil manipulators?

[AngelDog]

DS is 12 weeks. He really struggles to get to sleep, needs loads of sleep, can only sleep in a sling during the day, and gets overtired at the drop of a hat, with unpleasant consequences all round.

I've asked various health professionals for advice on how I can help him to get to sleep more easily. The responses have been:

HV 1: Leave him to cry. He needs to go to sleep on his own. You're a neurotic mother.

HV 2: I wouldn't recommend controlled crying this young. Just leave him to cry. He needs to go to sleep on his own. He's manipulating you so that you'll hold him. You're a neurotic mother.

GP: Leave him to cry. He needs to go to sleep on his own. He's manipulating you so that you'll hold him. You're a neurotic mother.

Cranial osteopath: Try this book. It suggests controlled crying. Babies often struggle to sleep because of tension at home (= you're a neurotic mother).

Given that at least 10% of women have PND and are therefore likely to be sensistive to comments about their parenting, I didn't think that any of these comments were particularly helpfully phrased, even if I am a neurotic mother (which of course I don't think I am!)

I don't understand why babies wanting to be held by their parents is supposed to be an evil trait which must be trained out of them as soon as possible. They're babies - of course they need cuddles. They've just spent 24 hours a day for 9 months being cuddled. It's entirely natural for them to want to be held at least some of the time.

Nor do I understand why babies going to sleep on their own is some wonderful goal they must achieve within the first couple of months. If I don't think it's a problem that DS hasn't learnt how to go to sleep on his own yet, why do all the HCPs think it's a problem?

I find it hard to believe that the only people who have babies who learn to go to sleep are those who leave them to cry.

Apart from the fact that I don't agree with doing this, in DS's case it wouldn't work anyway, as once he gets overtired (which he does if he's left to scream), he can only stay asleep for 30 mins before he wakes up screaming again because he is so tired, at which point it all starts over again.

Sorry to rant; glad to get it off my chest. I can't imagine how people cope who don't know about MN and just ask the Gestapo professionals for advice.

I shall just have to continue with my hippy baby-wearing, sporadically co-sleeping, tree hugging ways in the absence of any better suggestions.

cat64, you are absolutely right. What I said was a gross generalisation and horribly unfair to many health professionals. When I wrote my original post, I was angry and wanting to let it out, but that is no excuse, and I would like to make an unreserved apology for the tone and substance of my remarks.

Hmm, not sure about the Baby Whisperer book. I know some people find it useful, but I think it might not suit the OP since she does insist on everything being done her way.

You could try the pram a bit more perhaps before giving up - put something over the front to make it darker perhaps, and pick a route which is very bumpy...

Or if you're breastfeeding what about feeding him to sleep, lying on the bed.

My DS is 7 months and I used to always feed him to sleep at night and joggle him to sleep in my arms during the day. We've now switched to putting him to sleep in the cot at night, and with a bit of encouragement, he'll turn over onto his side and bury his face into his comforter to fall asleep. In the day he mostly naps in the pram or after feeds, so he's not totally self-settling.

But he's never been left to cry to sleep, it's just easier now I think that he can safely go to sleep on his side and cuddle up to something.

I don't think the 'a baby will only cry for 10 minutes' rule is universal, but don't want to open up the controlled crying bag of worms here.

It gets easier as they need fewer and fewer naps as they get older.

Now a toddler, DS settles alone at night without a whimper (not much crying at 7 months to get to this point after feeding to sleep til then) and he sleeps through the night. For his one nap I still use the pram and then lift him out of it and put him in cot. We are generally coming back from the park or a playgroup.

What I mean to say is: it gets easier. Naps are always harder than the night settling and you can get round this..... (pram, feeding to sleep, sling, cuddling, dancing to sleep)until there is only one nap!

I would agree that on occasion I have been made to feel fairly alone when seeking guidance from a health professional. Though some are wonderful.

Good luck.

Oops meant the Baby Whisperer insists... not the OP!

and only ever made to feel alone by Health profs because their advice has been so utterly contrary to my gut instinct. With a tiny (and not so tiny) baby I couldn't bear the idea of letting them cry.... just couldn't bear it. (maybe that lessens with more children?)

And to follow on from my previous message, I suspect that I wasn't just being unfair to health professionals in general, but also to those particular ones I spoke to, who were offering me advice in good faith. If I don't feel it is a course of action I can take, or think that it is likely to make matters worse rather than better, that is my problem rather than theirs. So although it's very unlikely that they're reading this, I'd like to apologise to them too.

AngelDog - my DS was the same.

A couple of questions:

How often are you feeding him? I'm pretty sure my DS was just plain hungry a lot of the time. I'm pg again, and this one is going to be fed to sleep (if possible) for the first few months.

Also, my GP and I are in agreement that DS probably had silent reflux. Does your little one arch his back when he cries? I slept sitting up with him on my chest for the first four months. He screamed in his pram, cot and Moses Basket.

Mine started sleeping through at six months, and I never left him to cry, ever. I rocked him to sleep in my arms, then laid him down when he was sleeping deeply.

When he got to an age where he was starting to become attached to his soft toys (and could therefore comfort himself a bit), I taught him to go to sleep in his cot by sitting next to him and stroking him.

Took an hour and a half the first night (although he was not distressed), and hour the second and so on. Took a week.

I'm not saying any of this would work for everyone, but of course leaving them to cry is not the only option.

ChocolateMoose A book cannot make anyone do anything .... the reader might follow the suggestion to the letter. (which the author does not say you need to do) As an author of a self-help book their ideas are not law and no one has a duty to follow but..... I personally found it useful and so did some not all! of my friends.
dycey I agree it just so happened that the book suited my gut instinct and she put into words what I needed. After a while the book just collected dust!

Hey Angeldog - I feel your pain as my DS is of a very similar temperament, and like yours can certainly disprove the notion that the longest that a fed, warm, dry and content baby can cry is 10 minutes if left alone. I'd sell someone's soul for just 10 minutes of crying. He cries for longer than that even if held sometimes and on the few occasions where we've had to put him down in his cot furious after nothing else works he certainly cried for a lot longer than that! He had colic in his early days and I think there's traits from that time that continue, one of which is that he doesn't ever cry down into a grumbling/fussy stage, he only ever cries up into utter hysterical terror/fury, so like you I have reservations that cc would ever work with him. Ditto I think anyone whose had to deal with colic where you face at least three hours a day of inconsolable crying would do anything rather than employ a method that deliberatly uses crying. However I keep my mind open that when he's older than 9 months we may one day use that technique as a last resort. In the meantime I do think it's down to baby's temperament so much - and have a friend with twins doing everything the same and one twin is a dream sleeping baby and the other is an over-tired sleep fighter so don't get down when you hear from smug mums of incredible sleeping babies. In my sleep deprived state I take consolation from the fact that it tends to be the bright babies who don't sleep... apparently, although I could well be clutching at straws.
We certainly don't have sleep mastered in our house but he does now go down for regular naps in his cot (like your DS he finds naps on the go too distracting so the pushchair doesn't always work anymore). One of the best things we found was reading the baby whisperer section on sleep. While I never found her EASY routine helpful, because it tends to just make me neurotic and stressed when baby dares to not follow the book , I did find her wind-down ritual for naps/sleep very useful. Basically about 20 minutes before your baby is normally due for a nap, pick him up and carry him around with you - am not sure if the sling would work but in your arms seems to - and the act of carrying tends to calm baby down. Then once they are calm they are more likely to show sleep cues. In this case - yawns - so I carry my DS around while we listen to something soothing on Classic FM and then when I see the first yawn I take him into his room and get him ready for his nap, try to have him in his cot before the third yawn at the latest, or be prepared for a fight to sleep, but if I catch him at one yawn then I can sing to him for a little, then shush pat him and he falls asleep. After the colic weeks and having to feed him to sleep I found this routine nothing short of miraculous. He still won't fall asleep on his own at 7 months, but it's such a big improvement.
Really hope some of the above helps. Good luck!

I know a book can't make you do things, but the Baby Whisperer one made me feel depressed about my parenting whenever I read it (as opposed to e.g. No Cry Sleep Solution which I found much more supportive) and so I think it has the potential to make someone feel worse if they're tired and stressed. I've seen other comments on MN from people who felt similarly. Having a browse through a few books in a bookshop and finding one that, as you say, suits your own instinct, is probably the best way.

do you have the best sling you can have, for starters? have you thought about a baby hammock or are you putting him down in a hard cot? baby massage? a new chiropractor? oh, and a baby bucket bath, i forget what they're called, used to tire dd2 out in the evening because she was sitting up for herself (although supported in the bucket).

Back to the HV for a minute, when DD was 8 days old, a very nice, kind HV told me that she (DD) was a manipulative little monkey. And she was absolutely right, but I don't take it to have any negative connotations. She simply meant DD had worked out which noises to make to make me pick her up when she wanted to be picked up and would make them even when she wasn't hungry/tired/anything else. And 99% of the time I did (and do) pick her up because I think there is nothing wrong with having lovely baby cuddles whenever I can. But it made me feel so much better about that 1% of the time when I can't pick her up for whatever reason, because it reassured me that she's not actually going to melt or be scarred for life if she doesn't get her own way.

ChocolateMoose Fair enuff. Now to find the time to go to a bookshop and browes through a few book if your child does not sleep ha! ha! Hey Angeldog maybe we should be suggesting that you get someone else to look after the little one between feeds & in that time you sleep, relax, go out, it might all fall into place. My DH looked after Ds every saturday morning for me to go to post-natel exercise classes at the hospital. The time out was a godsend.

Angeldog, my DS2 is now 4 months and I have seen a change in his sleeping too in recent weeks, he is much more alert and consequently finding it harder to settle and can be prone to being over-tired. Especially when his big brother wakes him just after he has dropped off! I am firmly of the not letting them cry themselves to sleep camp, and here are some of the things I have tried:

Recently introduced a bedtime routine and moved bedtime earlier. I do a massage (and bath on every other day) which he loves. The earlier bedtime has only really happpened in the last couple of weeks or so though.

DS2 (unlike his brother) won't feed to sleep, but is very 'sucky'. I have given him a dummy, which I had some misgivings about, but its really done the trick in terms of helping him settle. I remove just before he falls asleep (if I catch him!). I a a bit of a convert now .

I try to feed him in a quiet and dark room as much as possible, to make sure he takes a full feed and remove as much other sources of stimulation as possible. I try to make sure DS1 is in another room!

I also find a trip in the car/buggy always does the trick (but didn't for DS1 so just goes to show they are all different). Only works though if he is fully fed and satisfied.

Also, bear in mind that as they get older they do need less sleep, so if he is taking 2 hours to settle, maybe he just isn't tired some of the time? Sometimes you can relax them with a cuddle and a quiet play (I like to lay DS2 on my lap and cycle his legs, which also helps with any wind which may be causing some discomfort) and then have another go at getting them to sleep when they are in a better frame of mind and more tired.

Hope some of these may be of use. Well done too for coming back and responding to your initial posts.

Well said cat64, its seems very rare that people are willing to reassess their comments or views and apologise. Especially on MN ha ha!
My 3 year old DS has got into a habit of going to sleep in his own bed then about 2 hours later coming into our bed whether we're in it or not! My HV also suggested controlled crying but after much soul searching DH and I decided that as we all get a good nights sleep at the moment why change things? It won't last forever and we get lots of cuddles. IMO parents are too inclined to push their young children into being independent too early.
ChocMoose - I like the No Cry Sleep Solution too. In chapter 1 it says something along the lines of " If the situation you are experiencing now means that all involved get a good nights sleep then you really dont need to be reading this book." It was just so fab to hear something positive!

CDMforever Totally agree with you. Mates at work have said never have kids in your bed. If it suits them fine but if Ds has had a nightmare I want him to feel safe and secure he comes into ours. I'm a poor sleeper so I get into his. Sometimes I put him back in his own bed sometimes I don't. I don't make hard unbreakable rules neither does DH thank God. But we genrally stick to an everyday routine. I remember getting into Mum's bed because I was cold and her put my feet close to her so I can warm up lovely. but I didn't do all the time. Unlike my brother

Thank you everyone for your kind and helpful suggestions - you have been much kinder to me than I deserve, given the obnoxious way I started this thread.

ChocolateMousse, thanks for the clarification! - I was momentarily confused I've actully got a copy of the Baby Whisperer out of the library but hadn't got as far as reading it yet. The irony is that it was trying to follow her ideas from 'The BW solves all your problems' book which got DS overtired in the first place, as we couldn't spot any tired signlas until he was already overtired. But now we know his little ways a bit better I'll have another look and see if it helps. I've got the NCSS too so I'll take another look at that when I get chance.

Booboobedoo, thanks for the suggestions. Your approach sounds like the sort of thing I would be happy with. I have thought about reflux, but he seems to be quite happy lying in his cot at night, so I suspect it's not that. He starts yawning about 45 mins after he wakes up - about 20 mins after finishing a feed - so I don't think he's hungry. (I have offered him feeds at points, but if he's feeling tired he won't feed - unless it's night time.)

DS ended up being awake for longer than he could handle today while we were at a post-natal course and one of the HVs there commented 'He is tired, isn't he?' in response to his yawns, which was reassuring for me that I'm not just imagining that he's tired.

I did manage to rock / pat him to sleep and put him in his cot earlier this afternoon which was a great success for us. He only slept for 30 mins as he was rather over-tired by that stage, but I feel that was a positive development at least. I'mgoing to stick with trying things that don't run the risk of him getting too overtired, as that tends to mess up his night-time sleeping, and since that has been improving lots, I'm keen to keep it that way!

My parents are coming to visit tomorrow, so my dad will be able to do sling duty for a bit. I don't know who enjoys it more, him or me!

Thanks again, everyone, and apologies again for having been so horrible.

Starbear, apparently when I was little it was Musical Beds most nights and you never knew where you were going to end up! I had a wonderful, warm childhood and it looks like my brood are gonna get the same!
We're just wondering whether to get a king sized bed or not........

We do. Go for it

Angeldog, this won't help you at all - but I need to get this off my chest - HVs IN MY EXPERIENCE are useless. I've gone to them with various concerns in the last few months and they just come out with the same home-spun, woolly old wives tales I would get off me Auntie or Joan at No. 82. I never hear them start a sentence with 'studies have shown....' or 'the most recent research is...' whatever happened to evidence based care? The best you can hope for is 'nevermind dearie, it'll sort its self out' - which is undoubtedly true but we also hope for abit more when we consult alleged healthcare professionals. Lucky1979's experience is a case in point; my good little sleeper turned insomniac at 4 months....I tried everything....I asked my HV why things might have changed so dramatically and got the same old patronising, yadda yadda - 'he has a small stomach' (what? smaller than the one he had last month then?). As it turns out there is a well-known developmental shift - which disrupts sleep for weeks either side of 4 months. This I gleaned from ceaseless googling. Once I knew it was NORMAL - I chilled out and made peace with daytime napping. I really, really do think the HV should know about predictable changes infant sleep patterns. Peewee is now between 5 and 6 months and has re-discovered sleeping through BUT I am expecting the 6 month growth spurt to kick in any day AND I won't be running to the HV to make sense of it. On the subject of crying, controlled or otherwise - there's no way I'd put myself through that torture voluntarily - I can't stand my baby's crying....I always respond swiftly because that's what my gut prompts me to do. I believe that babies cry for a reason (this manipulation B.S. drives me wild - he's only just worked out he's got feet for Petes'sake) and when he's teething, hungry or suffering with wind etc etc etc I want to comfort him, always. Meanwhile, a truly supportive partner, guilt free napping and a FECK IT attitude to housework will make short term sleep deprivation bearable.

Hmm,interesting thread, OP.

My contribution to this thread is that all babies are different, and yes, I too am fed up of all the (patronizing?) and contradictory advice.

I NEVER thought that Controlled Crying or CIO was a good idea and didn't need to with my two first DCs. They weren't brilliant sleepers, but I didn't need to work at it - it just happened with time and as they grew up.

However, my DC3 has been an absolute nightmare sleeper. He is nearly 8 months and has rarely gone longer than 3 or 4 hours. Heard a HV saying the other day that babies should just be left and that babies are so over-stimulated with the TV always on and that they are left to sleep in their car seat in the front room and not put up in their cot.

Well, that's not how it is in my house! We are very much in a routine with the other two going to bed happily at 7 every night. So, it can't be my inexperience or chaotic lifestyle that is causing the sleep problems.

So, am still waiting for some decent advice on how to get my baby to sleep. And, yes, what a good point was made that where is the latest research and evidence from the HVs - we don't need old wives tales cos we get enough of them from DMs and MiLs!

But, OP, the only thing that is getting me through is that it does not mean your baby is "good" or "bad" if she or he sleeps. They do get there eventually and sleeping through the night isn't the holy grail of parenting.

Good luck and relax...

sorry if this has already been suggested, but have you tried a chiropractor or osteopath? maybe the reason for only sleeping in the sling positions, and for waking up crying if put down, could be to do with a stiff back / neck?